Suspending the Western Wall Compromise and the Bill on Non-Orthodox Conversion: Implications for the Philanthropy of North American Jewry Toward Israel

The message to the next generation of North American Jewish donors, volunteers, and leaders is that Israel accepts their money and time, but does not accept them.

Birthright Mega 2010; eJP archives photo.

By Dr. Hanna Shaul Bar Nissim and Prof. Hillel Schmid

The recent decision of the Israeli government to suspend the Western Wall compromise and keep the monopoly by the Chief Rabbinate is a source of shock for large segments of North American Jewry. This decision has implications for the levels of tolerance and acceptance of Jewish-religious diversity in Israel as well as for the philanthropic support of the Jewish community in thousands of nonprofit organizations that provide social and other services in Israel.

The Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics estimates that total donations from international sources to Israel amount to $2.64 billion a year, which constitutes 60% of the total philanthropic funds in Israel. Out of these, the declared tax-deductible donations of North American Jewry to Israel were estimated to be approximately $2.16 billion in 2010, originating primarily from Jews affiliated with the Reform, Conservative, and Modern-Orthodox denominations. The lion’s share of the donations are direct contributions to nonprofits operating in Israel, and the rest, estimated at about 10% or $210 million, are channeled through central fundraising mechanisms such as the Jewish Federations of North America. These giving patterns have changed significantly in recent decades. In particular, there has been a shift toward the growth in direct philanthropic support to organizations in Israel; the expansion of areas of giving related to social and welfare services to new fields such as gender equality, religious pluralism and diversity, empowerment of disadvantaged populations; and a new focus on democracy and civil rights efforts.

The government decision has the potential to impact the contributions patterns of American Jewry to Israel in three ways:

First, the impact on Jewish federation giving to Israel is not expected to be significant. The federations represent complex, multifaceted, and community-based philanthropic institutions rooted in the notion of a central mechanism that coordinates communal activity and makes decisions for the donors. Organizations such as federations aspire to act in a consensus manner, and their decision-making does not revolve around the policy of the Israeli government, but is anchored instead around the tension between the needs of Israeli society and the needs of the local communities (Jewish and non-Jewish) in which they operate. These constraints will likely prevent any unexpected changes in patterns of giving to Israel.

Second, more significant fallout is expected among those directly affected by the government’s decision: Reform and Conservative Jews. These groups are feeling their expression of Judaism is not being recognized and validated. It is important to remember that only those who are well informed of Israeli and Jewish American politics will view the government decision as a decision of exclusion. These groups are unlikely to alter the scope of their donations but instead shift their areas of contributions to Israel to support advocacy organizations working to separate religion from state in Israel, weaken the Chief Rabbinate, combat government corruption, and support the social change organizations associated with the left wing parties. The past shows that the rise of the “Who is a Jew?” debate shifts the goals and targets of contributions to spheres of social change and social justice.

Third, Jews who do not contribute to Israel and especially younger Jews are affected by the government’s decision. These groups are potential future donors and volunteers for social causes for the State of Israel. The government decision has a negative impact on the potential contributions, volunteerism, and emotional connection of young Jews with the State of Israel and Israeli society. The government’s decision was made at a time when prominent Jewish philanthropists, alongside the Israeli government, are working to create an emotional and spiritual connection between young Jews and Israel by investing hundreds of millions of dollars in programs such as Birthright Israel and the Maccabiah. Young people who participate in these programs come from all Jewish denominations, and many are from interfaith families. The government’s decision undermines the multi-year investment of resources, time and cross-border work aimed at connecting the two largest centers of world Jewry – Israel and North America. The message to the next generation of North American Jewish donors, volunteers, and leaders is that Israel accepts their money and time, but does not accept them.

Dr. Hanna Shaul Bar Nissim is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies, Brandeis University. Her doctoral dissertation was written on the changing philanthropy of the UJA-Federation of New York. Her research work is devoted to the study of contemporary Jewish philanthropy, Israeli philanthropy, and ethnic and community aspects of organized philanthropy.

Prof. Hillel Schmid is Professor emeritus at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is the founder and first director of the Center for the Study of Philanthropy in Israel, Hebrew University.

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First, no one should have been surprised by the Israeli government’s reversal of position on the Wall issue. It is consistent with prior reversals and failures to enforce decisions either favorable to non-orthodox Jews or unfavorable to the orthodox (for example, the expansion of universal military service to include the orthodox). A truly responsible Jewish press would raise this point (and call for close attention to future actions) whenever the Israeli government, or its supporters, claims that it has taken action to honor non-orthodox branches of Judaism or bring the orthodox into social harmony with the rest of the Jewish community.

Second, why focus on the impact these actions have on philanthropy? The bigger issue is their impact on the emotional and religious ties of the diaspora to Israel and the extent to which Israel is perceived as a “Jewish state” and not an orthodox enclave.

People who believe that Israel is a Jewish State and not an Orthodox enclave are not paying attention to demographics. These actions are expressions of power and are meant to push away and denigrate anyone not walking in lock step with the Orthodox decision makers. Where in any of this is an attachment to Jews, a connection to Jews, a belief that we are all part of One People.

To them, we are less than they are, not worthy of honest dealings. They want our money and time but not us? Well, if they get our money or our time, whose fault is that?

In addition, we should tell the federations that supporting people who demean us and cut us out of every decision, who cannot be bothered to deal with us in truthfulness is not a position of consensus.

The Jewish establishment has castigated If Not Now and J Street for their disagreements with the Netanyahu government and has turned the other way for far too long. This is just a logical follow up to the blind loyalty of AIPAC and other establishment groups that supported Israel “right or wrong”. Now we see just how wrong that approach can be. Supporting Israel sometimes means opposing its government policies and politicians. US Jewish institutions need to learn that lesson.

One possible point of political leverage that liberal diaspora Jewry may have over decisions of the current Israeli government is foreign donations. The data presented in this article is way too coarse, however, to inform us of any leverage that may exist. We progressive Zionist activists who seek to find ways to apply political pressure on the Netanyahu government in this area (and other areas related to Orthodox monopoly over Israeli political budgets and Israeli publicly funded Jewish institutions) need to learn more about the source and beneficiaries of this $2.6 billion in annual international contributions to Israel. I have not been able to find the source of this philanthropy data on the English website of Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics.

Further information can be found in the following media releases of the Israeli CBS –
Central Bureau of Statistics (3/3/2014). Philanthropy of Israelis, 2009-2011.
Central Bureau of Statistics (15/8/2016), Income and expenses of non-profit institutions.

Knowledge on the usage of these contributions and changes in giving patterns in the past decades is limited, and my research work is focused on these aspects and others.

In year 1983, the Reform movement decided to accept the children of Jewish fathers as Jews even without a conversion ceremony. They knew that doing this would make Orthodox Jews despise Reform Judaism more than ever before, but that knowledge did not stop them or even slow them down a little.

When the Reform movement decided to accept openly-gay Rabbis and openly-lesbian Rabbis, they knew that doing this would make Orthodox Jews despise Reform Judaism more than ever before, but that knowledge did not stop them or even slow them down a little.

Now the Reform movement is paying the price for ignoring the feelings of their Orthodox brothers and sisters.

Orthodox Judaism is a large part of the cause of ongoing Jewish assimilation.

In modern life there is a push and a pull towards large scale Jewish assimilation.

Jewish Assimilation Push = Orthodox Judaism constantly and successfully Jewbarassing all non-Orthodox Jews away from Judaism and the Jewish community. Their self-definition seems to require it for their survival.

Jewish assimilation pull = openness of societies where Jews are living to Jewish participation as full citizens and to competing universal ideologies in those societies whose supporters welcome Jews as supporters, especially when they psychologically and socially “distance themselves” from their competing Jewish community roots.

Evidence of this steady erosion of the “modern” Jewish community is all around us and can be seen, in fact, as a phenomenon at work over at least the last 2500 years of Jewish history – since the Babylonian exile and the emergence of the Jewish Diaspora.

Jewish demography indicates that if all of the descendants of the 4 million Jews alive in Roman times (in the year 1 AD) were still Jews today, there’d be a billion of us. We certainly have not been literally killed off along the way. Jewish memory records all atrocities committed against us and horrendous as they have been, they cannot come close to paring our numbers down to the paltry remnant who remain Jewish today or even the 18 million who remained Jewish preceding the Holocaust – the worst atrocity, by far, in Jewish history.

Chabad, on the other hand, has shown that the Orthodox community is capable of a wide variety of actions based on Torah whose goal and effect is to reverse the Jewbarrassing “push” being inexorably executed by Orthodox Jews against the non-Orthodox that leads to assimilation. Why can’t the other branches of Orthodox Judaism learn these Chabad values and techniques?

What’s most interesting, is that the negative effect of Orthodox Jewbarrassing on the rest of the Jewish community is even having its impact on the secular Jews of Israel, albeit in a less intense form. But this is an entirely separate discussion from the undeniably huge rates of constant Jewish assimilation in the Diaspora over the past 2500 years.

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